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Aula Orientalis 21 (2003) 79-86 79

Some Considerations about the Second Book by Philo of Byblos

Ju. B. Tsirkin St. Petersburg

[The second book of the work by Philo of Byblos contained most probably some stories about the young godswho died and were resurrected, who were associated with certain female deities and were the lords of particularcities, though they were common to the whole of the Phoenician world.]

The preserved fragments of Philos work have repeatedly attracted the close attention of numerous

researchers. The work has been believed to be a Greek translation of Sanhuniatons Phoenician History

written in the Phoenician language long before Philos day (Euseb. Praep. ev. IV, 16, 6). Besides Philo

himself admitted that he had expounded Sanhuniatons theology in Greek (fr. I, 9, 30). Until recently most

historians have maintained that Sanhuniaton had never existed, that Philo had referred to the ancient

Phoenician sage with the sole aim to add weight and authority to his own book1

but today the historicity of

Sanhuniaton is practically beyond doubt2

. The whole work by Philo was composed in 8 or 9 books (Euseb.Praep. ev. I, 9, 23; IV, 16, 6) but only several fragments of the first book (quoted by Eusebius to condemn

and denounce the pagan abomination) and one mention of the second book by Johannes Lidus (De

mens. IV, 154) have come down to us. Naturally it is only the first book that has been thoroughly studied

and commented on. But let us try and imagine what kind of mythology Philo could have treated in the

second book of his work.

To begin with, it must be pointed out that although Philo had claimed to render Phoenician theology

as it was seen by Sanhuniaton (Euseb Praep. ev. I, 9, 30), the extant fragments fail to supply us with the

whole of this teaching about the Gods; moreover nothing is written in them about the Gods who played

a most important role in Phoenician religion. For instance, about Melqart it is only said that he was born

by Demarous (fr. I, 10, 27) but in general, there were quite a number of myths about this God who was

considered the Lord of Tyre (KAI 47) and whose very name meant king of the city. Cicero (De nat.

deor. III, 16, 42) mentions among six Herculeses Jupiter and Asterias son especially venerated by theTyrians. Philo (fr. I, 10, 31) calls Demarous Zeus, which means that the Jupiter of Cicero is no doubt

Demarous, while Asteria is called by the orator Letos sister. This information surely comes from Greek

1 E. G. Gudemann, Herennius, 2), inRE. Hbd. 15 (1912), col. 610.2 O. Eissfedt, Taautos und Sanchuniaton, Berlin 1952, pp. 52-56; S. Moscati,I Fenici e Cartagine,Torino 1972, p. 315; I.

Sch. Schiffmann, Phoenician Mythology and Ancient Historical Tradition, in Phoenician Mythology, Saint Petersburg 1999, pp.194-197 (in Russian).


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SOME CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT THE SECOND BOOK BY PHILO BYBLOS

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the gate of the Herakleion, in other words, the temple of Melqart, at Gades. The scenes executed on the

gate of the Herakleion represent the divinitys struggle against various manifestations of the evil chtonian

powers floods of water issuing from the earth, terrestrial monsters and terrifying subterranean creatures

and finally Melqarts death and resurrection plainly treated as the triumphant end of his eventful life full

of labours, and passions, and battles11. To Melqart came to be attributed the founding of both Tyre (Nonn.XL, 439-547) and Gades, Tyres colony in the extreme West (Strabo III, 5, 5). In the bilingual inscription

(KAI 47) in its Greek part, the Lord of Tyre is called arkhegetes, i. e. leader. He appears as the

undeniable leader of the whole of Tyres colonisation. He is considered to have discovered purple that

played an important part in Tyres economy (Onom. IV, 45-47). There were other stories about Melqart,

too. We may even tentatively suppose that Melqart was a pivotal figure in the Tyrian mythological

tradition.

A role similar to that of Melqart at Tyre must have been played by Adonis at Byblos. Strabo (XVI, 2,

18) says that Byblos was dedicated to Adonis, his grave was shown near the city12

. In the Treatise On the

Syrian Goddess (6-8) ascribed to Lucian, we can read about the holiday of Adonis at Byblos. The myths

about Adonis have a paradoxical fate. The name of this is purely Semitic. When unwilling or wary of

calling the god by his name, the Phoenicians used the name Adonai. The Phoenicians of Sardinia called

Melqart Adonis13. This name became an epithet of Baal too14. However, it does not preclude the existence

of an independent figure in the Phoenician pantheon. The residents of Byblos must have created as many

tales about their Lord as the Tyrians about their King of City but the one remnant of the Phoenician

(not Greek) myth about this divinity is the information from Lucian or Pseudo-Lucian (De dea Syra 6) that

his Byblos informers emphatically stressed the fact that Adonis had died in their country by a wild boars

tusks. A similar echo of this Phoenician myth may be the evidence of Pollux (Onom. IV, 76) that in the

Phoenician language the gingra, a variety of the flute, is called adonic. Except for this, whatever we know

about Adonis comes from Graeco-Roman sources. The Greeks had included this god into their pantheon

out of mind. Adonis is first mentioned by Hesiod who considered him to be the son of Phoenix whom the

Greeks regarded as the Phoenicians eponym (Apollod. III, 14, 4). Afterwards, many authors of different

epochs and periods of the Greek history wrote diverse myths about him (Apollod. I, 3, 3; III, 14, 3-4;

Ovid. Met. 10, 300-739; Luc. De dea Syra 6; Hig. Fab. 58; 248; 251; Schol. Hom. Il. V, 385), they differin some details but are basically identical, which makes it possible to reconstruct the original myth.

Once there lived Myrrha (or Smyrna), the daughter of Cinyras, king of Cyprus. Her mother had

sneered and jeered the goddess of love (evidently Astarte) and even boasted that her daughters were by far

more beautiful than the goddess. The latter got incensed by her profanity and decided to punish the girl for

her mothers blasphemy. The goddess enticed in the girl an impious passion for her father. Cinyras aware

that his daughter was of marriageable age, began to invite prospective suitors but the young lady

adamantly turned them all down. When he asked her what sort of husband she wished to have, she replied:

the one exactly like her father. Cinyras was immensely gratified by her answer; he read in it her respect

and deference for him. Myrrha, thought burning with passion was at the same time overwhelmed by the

enormity of her sin. Finally the desperate girl made up her mind to hang herself but her wetnurse rescued

her. On learning about the girls immoral perverse feelings, the devoted wetnurse promised to help her

appease her love hunger.One holy day, when the women of the court had gone to glorify the goddess, Cinyras was left alone

in his palace and got drink. In the night the wetnurse brought Myrrha into his bedroom saying that that girl

11 Ju. B. Tsirkin, Phoenician Culture in Spain, Moscow 1976, pp. 66-71 (in Russian).12 B. Soyez,Byblos et la fete des Adonies, Leiden 1977, pp. 21-23.13 G. Garbini, Nuove epigrafi fenici de Antas, inRstFen 25 (1997) 65.14 O. Loretz, Adn como epiteto de Baal e sui rapporti con Adonis e Adonaj, in Adonis, Roma 1994, p. 33.


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so much like his daughter and of the same age, was madly in love with him. Thus Myrrha conceived by

him. At dawn when he saw who was lying by his side on his couch, he was horrified and furiously ready

to murder his obnoxious daughter. She had a very narrow escape and on leaving her fathers palace, she

long roamed the world. Exhausted by her wandering, Myrrha pleaded the gods to banish her on account

of her ignominy from the kingdoms of both the quick and the dead. The gods consented to satisfy herentreaty. And presently Myrrhas legs were covered with earth, from her feet sprang some roots, her bones

became a tree, her blood turned into its sap and her skin into its bark. So is how Myrrha became a tree but

inside her trunk there was still a baby, the fruit of her pious love. After nine months the tree trunk burst

open and out came the baby called Adonis. According to another version of the myth, Cinyras in nine

months did find Myrrha after all and struck her trunk with his sword out of the crack emerged the

newborn Adonis.

Adonis was quick to grow and soon he become a boy of surpassing beauty. Baalat-Gebal (Aphrodite)

saw him and fell in passionate love with him. She hated to part from him, she always wanted him by her

side. When Adonis took to hunting, she often accompanied him but, however, she could not afford to be

constantly with th youth. She implored him to take care of himself when hunting and warned him against

chasing such dangerous animals as lions and wild boars. Once, when the goddess was away, Adonis went

hunting and saw his hounds chase a huge wild boar out of its lair. Some peoples said that the jealous god

of war turned himself a giant wild boar in order to ruin Adonis. The beautiful youth bravely met the

challenge and struck the boar with his spear but the wounded beast attacked him. Adonis recollected the

warnings of the goddess and took to his heels but the boar overtook him and drove its horrible tusk into his

flesh. The boy dropped down dying. The goddess heard the youths cry of agony and rushed to his rescue.

She clutched his body in her arms bemoaning him, she besought him not to leave her, not to go to the

other world, she begged him to wale up and give her a farewell kiss lasting as long as possible. The

goddess was desperate: she was immortal and not able to follow her beloved into the underworld to enjoy

his company eternally. Then she took the dead body, carried it out of the forest, placed it on the purple

fabrics, rubbed some incense and poured some precious chrism upon it. The mourners laid the funeral

wreaths on the body and cut their hair off as a token of grief and bereavement. To immortalise her Adonis,

she grew out of his blood the beautiful flower anemone. Still she knew no peace of mind and appealed toher father and the supreme god resolved to resurrect the boy but to avoid hurting the underground queen,

he decreed that part of the year Adonis should spend under ground and the other part he should live about

ground, and Byblos was chosen as his earthly abode.

According to Apollodorus version of the myth, Aphrodite (i. e. Baalat-Gebal no doubt) enraptured

and charmed by the beauty of the newborn Adonis and obviously anxious for his life, put him into a casket

and entrusted him to the underworlds mistress, but the latter refused to part with the youth when he grew

up and both the goddesses appealed to the supreme gods judgement. The sovereign ordered to divide the

year into three parts so that Adonis could live by himself over ground for a third, under ground for another

third and with Aphrodite-Baalat-Gebal for the last third of the year. Adonis, though, wilfully added his

part of the year to the last one so that the beautiful boy and the goddess of love lived together two thirds of

the year. There are several variants of this story too. According to one of them, Adonis spends in the

kingdom of death half a year, not one third, and the other half in this world. According to another variant,Adonis alive and active in the underground too and when the goddess went down to meet Adonis there,

she saw him in this shape and state. Finally, there was a variant of the myth in which Adonis came back to

life at his beloved goddess will, rather than at the will of the supreme god.

In the Phoenician (not Greek) myth there must have been an episode about how Adonis invented a

new variety of the flute. Adonis in general was very closely connected with music, and in his cult a


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threnody for the dead and later a hymn for his resurrection played a significant role15

. There is an opinion

that the name of Adonis father, Cinyras, is evocative of the lyre or the cithara which in the West Semitic

world was called kinnor16

.

The Graeco-Roman authors when telling this myth naturally give all the personages Greek and

Roman names, but it is not at all difficult to use in their stead Phoenician ones: Baalt-Gebal (in place ofAphrodite or Venus), Sheol (in place of Persephone), El (in place of Zeus), but to identify Adonis is not so

easy. That it is not the gods own name is plain enough. In the scholia to Lycophrons poem Alexandra

(831) we find that the Cypriots call Adonis Gavas and the same name is used by Lycophron himself (828-

833). The myth connected Adonis or rather his mother with Cyprus, and Pseudo-Meliton connects the

young god with this island too. Could the Cyprian name of this god be an echo of his true name as

Haddu was in Ugarit the true name of Baal-Sapanu.

It must be noted, though, that in the inscriptions of Byblos this god is never mentioned, the kings

appeal chiefly to Baalat-Gebal. Only one time, in the early inscription of Yehimilk (KAI 4) about 950 b.

C. instead of this goddess are mentioned Baal-Shamim, Baal-Gebal and the holy gods of Byblos. We may

advance a supposition that the Lord of Byblos is name none other than the Master whom the Greeks

understood as Adonis. But why this god disappears from later royal inscriptions of Byblos so far defies

explanation. If Baal-Gebal is Adonis (very much like Baal-Sor is Melqart), then the myth and cult must

have existed as early as the Xth century b. C. The above-stated connection between the myth of Adonis

and Cyprus bears witness to the fact that the Greeks borrowed the myth in Cyprus. However it seems

unlikely that Hesiodus was well acquainted with the myths of Cyprus. It looks more probable that he used

common myths widespread in Greece in his day in their Graecized form. The poet calls the father of

Adonis Phoenix and his mother Alphisibea, i. e. the character of a purely Greek myth. Consequently by

the time of Hesiodus, Adonis had so firmly established himself as an integral figure of the Greek pantheon

that he was given a Greek mother and people were no longer aware of his foreign origin. Therefore we

may hold that the myth of Adonis had found its way to Greece as early as the Mycenaean times. The

subject of the myth as such well corresponds with a traditional and common scheme whose meat is an

attempt to escape a foretold misfortune17. This fairy-tale scheme fused with the mythical and religious

notion of a dying and rising god. Such blending could not possibly be very modern, it must be traced backto very early days. All this enables us to speak about the longevity of the Byblos myth about Adonis.

In the remains of the first book by Philo, very little is said about Eshmun except that one of Astartes

daughter (Titanides) by Sydikos gave birth to Asklepios (fr. I, 10, 25). In the Hellenistic-Roman period

(perhaps even prior to it), Asklepios-Aesculapius was identified with Eshmun18

. Some more information

about Eshmun comes from Damascius (Vita Isid. 302). He says that Eshmun was a beautiful young hunter

pestered by the goddess Astrono with her ardent love. When the youth saw the goddess overtaking him,

he cut off his genitals and died but the goddess with the assistance of young Paean brought him back to

life and made him god. Damascius mentions that Eshmun was the eighth son of Sadykos (i. e. of Sydicos).

Eshmun was one of the most ancient gods whose cult was practiced not only at Ugarit but even at

Ebla19

. In the first millennium b. C. his cult was spread throughout the whole of the Phoenician world but

especially popular Eshmun was at Sidon where his most famous temple was erected20

so that he may be

15 Cf.: B Servaz-Soyez, Musique et Adonis, inAdonis, Roma 1984, pp. 67-68.16 E. Will, op. cit., p. 197.17 S. Ju. Neklyudov, On the Fatalistik Rites and Conseptions in Traditional Cultures, in Poetics. History of Literature.

Linguistics, Moscow 1999, p. 41.18 E. Lipi ski, op. cit., p. 155; E. Will, op. cit.,p. 207.19 E. Lipi ski, op. cit., p. 155.20 A. Parrot, M. Chehab, S. Moscati,Les Phniciens, Paris 1975, pp. 104-107.


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JU. B. TSIRKIN

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understood as this citys patron21

. Interestingly, Astronos assistant is Paean. He must be some healing

god, one of several such deities in Phoenician religion; Damascius calls him by the Greek name. In

Homers epic (Il. V, 401; 899), Paean is a divine healer abiding on mount Olympus; in other passage in

The Iliad (I, 473) Paean appears already as a joyous song in honour of Apollo. In Mycenaean Greece

there was the god Paean, later identified with Apollo22. The memory of this god, vague as it may be, musthave come down to the late Roman epoch which allowed Damascius to introduce his name into his

narration about Eshmuns resurrection. The two aspects of this deity healing and singing were tightly

intertwined because originally it was more likely than a magical charm, a sacred incantation used to treat

gods and people. In this connection we may recall Philos obscure phrase (fr. I, 10, 26) about the splendid

singer Sidon born by the sea god, which seems to corroborate the affinity between Eshmun and the myth

about his death and rising and Sidon.

Thus we have three gods whose cults and whole myths figured prominently in the Phoenician world.

They were younger that the generations of the deities described by Philo in the preserved fragments of the

first book and therefore we may call them young gods. They had some characteristics in common. First,

they were all dying and rising gods and so they connected the two worlds the world of life and the world

of death. Second, they are inseparable from a certain goddess. The goddess could be their mother or wife

or a loving women, but in either case hers was the major role in the gods first or second nativity. Third,

they were above all urban gods and so was even Eshmun whose cult, as has been stated earlier, was

common outside Sidon and even the Phoenician world in general. In the images of such divinities the

residents of the city saw the incarnation of everything they valued most highly23

. Small wonder, such

deities could perform all sorts of functions even those typical of other gods. And finally nothing save the

mention of their birth is said about them in extant fragments by Philo. As for Adonis, it seems this

privilege is denied him.

Yet it is as clear as day that the work by Sanhuniaton-Philo could not possibly have omitted such this

material. It has been convincingly shown that this book has combined at least two traditions those of

Tyre and Byblos24 or perhaps even more. For the time being we shall only emphasize that both Melqart at

Tyre and Adonis at Byblos played too significant a role so that the ancient authors could ill afford to pass

their lives and deeds in silence. Therefore we feel justified to assert that the second book by Philo couldcontain this information.

As has been mentioned above, the only reference to the second book of Philos work is the phrase of

Johannes Lidus specifying that it dealt with Kronos who reigned in Libya, Sicily and the western

countries25

. Philo calls El Kronos as he himself underlines it (fr. I, 10, 16). At the same time in Africa,

Kronos and, correspondingly, Saturn is most often identified with Baal-Hammon. This is especially

plainly seen at the sanctuary of Cirta where in the Greek inscriptions we find Kronos whereas in the Punic

ones, mostly Baal-Hammon26

. In Roman Africa, the cult of Saturn uninterruptedly continued the cult of

Baal-Hammon27

. So whom we identify the Kronos of Philos second book with, El or Baal-Hammon?

21 Cf. E. Lipi ski, op. cit., pp. 154-168 (in Russian).22 A. Bartonek,Mycenae the Golden, Moscow 1991, pp. 203-204.23 O. Leslie, Old Testament Religion in Its Canaanite Background, New York-Chicago, 1936, p. 24.24 S. E. Loevenstamm, Sanchuniat(h)on, in RE, SptBd. XIV, 1974, col. 594.25 Johannes Lidus combines the information about Kronos supplied by Philo and Harax. The latter mentions the city of

Kronia allegedly founded by Kronos. But no doubt the information about Kronos control over the western countries belongs to

Philo.26 A. Berrti, R. Charlier,Le sanctuaire punique dEl-Hofra Constantine,Paris 1955,passim.27 M. Leglay, Saturne Africaine, Paris 1966, passim; R. Bloch, Religion romaine et religion punique lepoque

dHannibal, inLItalie prerromaine et la Rome republicaine. Mlanges offertes Jacque Heurgon, t. I, Paris 1986, pp. 37-38.


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It is often believed that El lost his significance in the first millennium b. C. as a result of his fusion

with Baal-Hammon, with the latter playing first fiddle in the syncretic image28

. But we deem it most

unlikely. True, the cult of El, so remote and considerably abstract a deity, came to be less venerated than

baals, peoples concrete and more human rulers, but El did not disappear altogether from the Phoenician

religious thought. At Samaal that was strongly affected by the Phoenicians, we find a mention of the El theCreator of the Creation in the Phoenician part of the bilingual inscription of the eight century b. C. 29 The

cult of El persisted in Tyres colonies in Africa30. Since the territory of Phoenicia proper is only slightly

investigated in terms of archaeology it is impossible to state with any degree of certainty how far and how

deeply the cult of El survived in the metropolis. But what matters is that in the western area of the

Phoenician world, the control over which is ascribed to Kronos, El was still worshipped. The answer, it

seems, should be sought in Philos phrase (fr. I, 10, 26) that El-Kronos begot a son of the same name. This

El the junior, seems to be none other than Baal-Hammon.

Baal-Hammon was indeed one of the major deities of the Phoenician West, including Carthage.

Though this gods cult existed in the metropolis too31

, it enjoyed its greatest popularity and its widest

spread in the Western colonies, however. Leaving alone at present scholarly disputes about the essence of

his epithet Hammon, we shall just remark that the gods solar character is evident enough. For instance,

before the fifth century b. C., the only decoration of the stelae in honour of Baal-Hammon at Carthage was

the disc of the sun32

. The similar disc is to be found on the stelae from Motya33

. Of great interest is also the

solar disc with the representation of a human face with big open ears meant to listen to the believers

supplications34

. Sometimes Baal-Hammon is represented as a hefty bearded old man sitting on his throne,

often decorated with cherubs, with a crown or tiara on his head, his right hand is raised in benediction, his

left hand is holding a staff ornamented either with a pinecone or a corn ear35

. On an ancient gem of the

sixth or maybe even seventh century b. C., Baal-Hammons throne is set on a ship of the Egyptian type

resembling the vessel of Osiris plying the underground waters as can be deduced from the plant stems

growing downwards36

. To sum up, Baal-Hammon attends to the peoples and blesses them. His attributes,

especially the combination of the suns disc and corn ears, bespeak him as a solar diety and

simultaneously the god of earth fertility. The corn ear could be sometimes replaced by the pinecone, the

time-tested symbol of immortality and of mans fecundity alike

37

. His voyage over the subterranean oceanunites the underground and the overground worlds. And, finally, it must be pointed out that on the

Carthage stelae Baal-Hammon is constantly accompanied by a goddess, first Astarte, later Tinnit.

Although no myths associated with Baal-Hammon are known to us so far, we may suppose that this

god joined the domains of life and death, he was accompanied by a goddess and was one of the most

influential and prominent patrons of Carthage and possibly of the whole of the Phoenician West, and,

besides, his nativity was just mentioned by Philo in his first book. Thus it follows that Baal-Hammon

possessed all the qualities of Melqart, Adonis and Eshmun. His mention in Philos second book indicates

28 E. g., R. Dussaud,Les religions des Hittites et des Hourrites, des Phniciens et des Syriens, Paris 1949, p. 368; A. Berti,

R. Charlier, op. cit.,p. 216; I. Sch. Schiffmann, op. cit., pp. 260-261.29 P. Magnanini,Le iscrizioni fenicie dellOriente, Roma 1973, p. 56.30 Mh. Fantar, Le Dieu de la mer chez les Phniciens et les Punique , Roma 1977, pp. 97-103; E. Lipi ski, op. cit., pp. 392-

393.31 E. Lipi ski, op. cit.,p. 251-256.32 C. Charles-Picard, Catalogue du Muse Alaoui, Tunis 1954, pp. 20-21.33 M. G. Guzzo Amadasi,Le iscrizioni fenicie e puniche delle colonie in Occidente,Roma 1967, tabl. XVII, XIX, XX.34 J. Ferron, Le betyle inscrit du Muse National du Bardo, inAfrica, 5-6 (1978) 96-103.35 E. F. Macnamara, The role of Greece as Intermediary between the Cultures of the Near East and Etruria during the 8 th

and 7th centuries B. C., inActa of the XIth International Congress of Classical Archaeology, London 1979, pp. 132-134.36 L. Foucher, La prsentation de Baal-Hammon, inArchologie vivante, 1/2 (1968/1969) 132, ill. XLV.37 M. Leglay, op. cit., pp. 200-203.


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that all the other deities under consideration in the present paper must have been dealt with in this book,

too.

According to Eusebius (Praep. ev. I, 9, 20; IV, 16, 6), Philo entitled work Phoenician History (

or ). It is impossible to say what the title of Sanhuniatons original work. In the

West-Semitic world, there coexisted two traditions of naming books: a) according to their initial wordsand b) according to their subject if their salient features. Which tradition was preferred by Sanhuniaton is

not known, but the Greek title given by Philo plainly shows that the subject-matter of his work, as well as

Sanhuniaton one was the history of Phoenicia, of the whole country, not just of this or that Phoenician

city. The mythological stories were unmistakably treated as the initial stages of his history. A vivid sample

of such historiography is the Bible. Its events are narrated in an orderly and logical succession: the

creation of the world, the first people before the Flood and after it, the disintegration of the single human

race into separate peoples, the forefathers of the Jews, not only of the Israelites but of their cognate

Aramaeans and Arabs as well, and comes history of the Jews. The history developed during the period

between Solomons death and the seizure of Samaria by the Assyrians in two states and is presented in

two more or less parallel accounts. In an entirely different world antique and at different time (the first

century b. C.) Diodorus Siculus arranged his Historical Library essentially in the same way trying to

blend both mythological and historical occurrences of different peoples. He himself (I, 4) characterizes the

composition of his work thus: in the first six books he recount the myths of the Greeks and barbarians

(three myths of each group), the next eleven books are devoted to the general history from the Trojan war

to the death of Alexander the Great and the rest - to the subsequent events. This composition seems very

logical. Obviously, Sanhuniaton had used the same scheme. With a fair degree of probability we may

presume that after the account of the young gods he passed on the description of the history of people.

In thus respect, his work could have resembled that by the Greek logographers who joined the description

of mythological antiquity with the concrete history of human down their own time38

.

We may be relatively sure that the stories about the young gods were gathered exactly in the

second book of Philos work. As we remember, this book included the unpreserved passages about Baal-

Hammon (Kronos the Junior) reigning in the Western areas of the Phoenician universe. But it is more

logical for Sanhuniaton to have dealt first with those gods who ruled in Phoenicia proper; then thetransition from the gods rule to that of the kings was quite convincing. It is hard to say how many books

(out of eight or nine) by Philo contained mythological subjects which incidentally neither Sanhuniaton nor

Philo separated from purely historical ones, the former because of the ideas current in his age, the latter,

on account of his Euhemerism. Nor is it possible to guess something else in the stories about Melqart,

Adonis, Eshmun and Baal-Hammon which are in the second book. Yet it seems that a considerable portion

of its lends itself to reconstruction. That is the reason why we have undertaken to reconstruct the missing

material of Philos second book.

(Translated from the Russian by L. Chistonogova)

38 E. D. Frolov, The Torch of Prometheus, Leningrad 1991, pp. 98-99 (in Russian).

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